North Korea says U.S. carrier groups accelerate threat of nuclear war

North Korea warned Monday that the unprecedented deployment of three U.S. aircraft carrier groups “taking up a strike posture” around the Korean Peninsula is making it impossible to predict when nuclear war will break out.

North Korea’s United Nations ambassador, Ja Song Nam, said in a letter to Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres that the joint military exercises with South Korea are creating “the worstever situation prevailing in and around the Korean Peninsula.”

U.S. Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said the carrier manoeuvres are not extraordinary.

“There’s no big message” intended for North Korea or anyone else, he told reporters.

It has been 10 years since the last U.S. three-carrier exercise.